1. Field of Invention
The invention relates to a method of fitting a protection sleeve for covering elastic contact pieces for clamping a male terminal, onto a female terminal body, and particularly to a socket terminal in which the female terminal body can easily be worked and is prevented from being misaligned in a fitting process with respect to the protection sleeve.
2. Related Art
Conventionally, as a generally used socket terminal, known is a round-pin terminal having a circular cylindrical shape and disclosed in, for example, Examined Japanese Patent Publication Sho. 63-11751. The round-pin terminal has an excellent workability because it has no particular limitations other than the connecting direction.
As shown in FIG. 8, a female terminal body 1 consists of a plurality of elastic contact pieces 2 which are separated from each other in a peripheral direction by slits S elongating in a longitudinal direction, a cylindrical base portion 3 onto which a protection member is to be fitted, a conducting portion la, a conductor clamping portion 4 to which an electric wire W is to be fixed, and a cover clamping portion 5. The elastic contact pieces 2 are disposed in a front part of the terminal body 1, the cylindrical base portion 3 and the conducting portion 1a in a middle part, and the conductor clamping portion 4 and the cover clamping portion 5 in a rear part. The terminal body 1 is formed by punching a flat conductive material and plastic-deforming the punched material into a circular cylindrical shape. In order to facilitate the insertion of a male terminal M, the front ends of the elastic contact pieces 2 are bent outward.
A circular cylindrical protection sleeve 6 is fitted onto the cylindrical base portion 3 through an annular pad 7, thereby protecting the elastic contact pieces 2. The sleeve 6 has a terminal insertion hole 6b at the front end. A terminal lock portion 6a for the fitting onto the cylindrical base portion 3 is formed at the rear end of the sleeve 6.
As shown in FIG. 9, the elastic contact pieces 2 is inserted into the sleeve 6 from an opening of the terminal lock portion 6a, while putting the annular pad 7 into contact with the front ends 2a of the elastic contact pieces 2. Then, the sleeve 6 is fixed by forming a press fitting 6c at a predetermined position on the sleeve 6 which corresponds to a press fitting portion 3a formed between the cylindrical base portion 3 and the elastic contact pieces 2.
However, a conventional socket terminal has problems as follows. When such a female terminal body having a round shape is produced by a general press working, particularly when the conducting portion 1a is formed by a conventional method, a difficult bending process is required in order to continuously conduct a drawing process, and it is difficult to produce and work a mold, whereby the production cost is increased and a defective is easily produced. Since an external stress is easily concentrated in the boundary between the conductor clamping portion 4 and the conducting portion 1a on which the drawing process is conducted, moreover, there is a possibility of causing damages such as that the terminal body is broken off during transportation.